Once, In You I Had A Brother
by Lily and her tramps
Summary: After Thor and Jane breakup, Thor finally visits his brother in his cell. In the cell Thor realizes that he has long since lost a brother; but he just might gain a friend. (Sorry for the cheesy summary!) Rated T because I'm careful like that.


AN: HOLY CRAP! My first independently published fan fiction is up! Since I'm probably hyperventilating on my side of cyberspace, please review my story, even if you hate it or think my grammar is horrendous in the extreme. thank you for reading, please enjoy!

On a side note, Thor/Loki **IS MY SHIP**, and I'm planning to continue writing for this timeline in separate pieces. If you are merely here because you wish they had a closer brotherly bond, this story could be read that way, but the others likely won't be.

Also, while Loki's punishments are terrible, they aren't described too vividly; nonetheless it seemed best to warn you all.

* * *

Thor trudged down to Loki's cell, a small thundercloud hanging overhead. He had tried to get rid of it, but even Mjolnir could not disperse it. Ever since his recent return from Midgard, the cloud floated overhead, unnerving everyone who saw it. Eventually, Thor had given up minding the thing. Instead, he went to visit Loki.

After returning to Asgard, Loki was pulled from Thor and taken to the Allfather. Thor had tried to follow, but instead he was directed to Frigga's chambers, where he futilely swung his hammer against the doors for two hours until the door was unlocked and they were released.

"Mother, where have they taken Loki?!" He had bellowed in between hitting the locked, barred, and guarded door.

"They've taken him to Odin," she said through tears. "To receive his punishments." Thor put down his hammer and sat down by his mother on her bed.

"What punishments, mother?" She covered her mouth with her hand in sympathy and cried as she described one of Loki's new tortures.

"Odin...he told me only of one... Loki will be made to show his true form in front of all of Asgard, and then," a wracking sob was choked from behind her hand. Thor pulled his mother close to comfort her, but she only cried more. "Then his mouth is to be sewn shut with no less than thirty-six stitches." She then wiped her face of her tears and tried to calm herself. "That is all he told me, but I fear not all my poor son has to face." She broke down crying again and Thor went back to attacking the door with a new-found fervour.

That had been many months ago. Once he was let out of his mother's chambers, he left for Midgard. Anthony had given permission to all the Avengers to stay in his tower, but most had other things to attend to first. Hawkeye and Black Widow had to go back to SHIELD and change field statuses, because after the battle of New York their faces were everywhere and they could no longer be covert assassins. Captain Rogers had given no proper reason for driving away from the others on his motorcycle, but Thor suspected that, once he needed a place to stay, he would find his way to the tower.

When he landed on the balcony of Stark Towers, he saw that it was mostly fixed, save for the name on the side, which remained a simple 'A'. While the tower had not been hugely damaged, it still impressed him that Anthony had been so expedient with the repairs. He stayed on Midgard, and heard the tails of the AIM that had made attempts to rule the world in his absence. He went to visit Jane and proceeded to take her to Asgard, but the lapse in his memory of Loki's punishment proved poisonous in their journey and by the time they were back on Midgard, he and Jane were no more.

Thus the cloud came into being. It did no harm, but it kept Thor isolated. He found he did not mind, but instead he dreamt of his youth. He dreamt of a time in his life before his almost-corrination, before he and his poor brother became so grievously divided, before the crown of Asgard mattered to either brother. He dreamt of spending all his time listening to Loki's sweet small voice read out of spell-books and story-books alike as his head rested on his brother's pale crossed legs. He dreamt of hiding in a tree to avoid lessons with Loki eating his lunch beside him, hidden from all by the green shadows of the leaves. He dreamt of the both of them making strange faces at Heimdall in ill-received attempts to make him laugh. Then, he would waken to his own tears falling down his cheeks. Finally, he had enough, and went to see his brother. As he entered Loki's cell, the thundercloud disappeared.

When he was let in to Loki's cell, the first thing he noticed was the cold. He felt it permeate his skin and muscle and bone, tingeing his fingers purple. The walls were covered in thin crystalline films of frost, and steam wafted off the walls and Thor's body. He clenched his jaw to stop the chattering of his teeth, and looked to Loki.

His brother was chained to the wall by a set of manacles that encased the entirety of Loki's hands and bound them together, the weighty metal did not allow for even the slightest movement of Loki's arms. The only advantage to this was that it covered his pale brother's naked form just well enough that he saw none of his brother's manhood. What he did see, however, were the acid scars that seemed to dribble down Loki's chest from his neck and lower lip. His lips, oh, his lips, were sewn together with rough twine that violated each puncture wound every time his lips dared even to twitch. The twine was the only thing unaffected by the acid, in fact it seemed to absorb the acid into itself, an unholy alliance forged to torture Thor's poor brother.

Thor wanted to fall to his knees in the wretched cell and kiss his brother's feet in apology for ever allowing the torture that befell Loki. He almost did. But then Loki's eyes turned to him, blood-red, with an almost auditory warning; _do not touch me._ So instead he sat by his brother, and willed his own warmth to spread to him.

"I've missed you brother."

_I am not your brother, Thor._ Thor startled, somehow Loki's thoughts were truly audible.

"I've learned many things on Midgard, one being that blood is not the only thing that makes a brother." Loki's eyes pierced Thor with chilling disdain.

_Regardless, you are no brother of mine, Thor Odinson._ Deep in his chest, Thor felt the cold of the room seep into his heart, probing into the solid, weighty ache of Loki's words.

"Loki, please. Have you really forgotten how we were together," Thor pleaded, "You were always so happy."

_I was always inferior, I believe you meant to say. I was the shadow to your light._ Thor let his head fall back and hit the frozen wall in frustration.

"Do you really think that?" Loki didn't dignify that with a response, but Thor knew him well enough to recognize when Loki was hurting. "You really do." He groaned and pushed his palms on to his eyes. "Loki, you were always so _brilliant_," he pleaded, "so incredible. Loki, no matter what you felt, I would like for you to know that you were never a shadow in my eyes, you were _dazzling_."

Loki stared into Thor's eyes, as if searching for some hint of an untruth. Ever since childhood, Thor could never hide anything from Loki. Be it in his face or his actions or his words, Loki could see the truth in him always.

_You...you mean that?_ Despite the undeniable truth of it, Loki's words came out in a fragile whisper. Thor placed his hand at the nape of Loki's pale neck, the age-old trademark of his affection warming his brother more than he cared to admit.

"Of course Loki. I love you." Loki's eyes flashed a glimmer of their past poison.

_Oh yes, that's why you brought Jane to see me I suppose? I suppose it was not enough for me to be trapped here, where in order to survive I can only stay out of my Jotun form for mere moments a day, acid leaking from the ceiling and absolutely no clothes on my back; your little girlfriend had to see me too?_ it was almost as if Loki spat the words, but his thoughts were not as easily schooled as his voice, and the painful tremors in his mind were barred to Thor. _I suppose she's left you now?_ He saw Thor's pained expression as he swallowed a bit, and Loki smiled cruelly, regardless of the pain of his stitches. _She would have never lasted anyway, you know. She was wrong for you, surely you knew that._

"Of course she was'" Thor said bitterly, hollow. "Who exactly did you see beside me, Loki?"

_No one at all, Thor_, Loki thought viciously.

"So, what? Do you imagine me alone for the rest of time, like you?" What he said came out without his consent, and once he said it, Thor recoiled from his own words. It didn't matter, Loki was looking away from him.

_No, I suppose didn't._ Loki smiled ruefully to himself, _I didn't imagine being alone for myself, either._

"You don't have to be alone," Thor said, and Loki's eyes widened like he had forgotten that Thor could hear his mind.

_Please Thor, I have already had my chances to become a real boy._ Thor knew that it was a reference to some piece of Midgard culture, he'd heard Anthony and Healer Banner and Hawkeye and even the Black Widow make some sort of reference to it at least once, all with the same hopelessness of his brother's thoughts, though each of them tried to hide it in their own way.

"I... I'm not sure what that means." Loki let his head fall back and he chuckled through his stitches. Thor reached for the irritated stretch of the punctures, but aborted the motion. "Don't... don't do that. It must hurt."

_So what if it does? It makes no difference to me anymore._ Thor's heart broke again, as it had hundreds of times, at the sad acceptance of Loki's thoughts.

"Well it does to me." He put both his hands on the sides of Loki's face, and he leaned in so that their foreheads touched. "Please. Don't make it hurt any more than it has to. You don't deserve that." Thor's body heat is all that kept the tears that ran down his cheeks from freezing, but Loki's tears hardened on his cheekbones.

_Thor, get off of me. NOW._ Confused, Thor moved away enough that he could look at Loki in the eyes and see the panic there as his face turned blue. Thor removed his hands quickly, and Loki looked down at the stone floor beneath them. _I can only stay in this form for a few minutes, remember?_ Thor reached out to touch him absently, but Loki jerked away. _Fool_, he said with no real malice, _you do remember the effects of touching a frost giant, correct?_

"Yes, of course." Suddenly, Thor felt unbearably awkward. He hadn't touched his brother much throughout his visit, and yet loosing that ability seemed to strand him on an island with no way to cross back to his brother. "Loki, do you remember how you used to read at every opportunity, and sometimes I would put my head in your lap and you would read the books aloud to me?"

_I remember that you always complained about my spell-books being boring._ There was a hint of humor in Loki's thoughts. Thor took off his cape and threw it over his brother's body, and rested his head on top despite Loki's protests. Loki's lap was cold, but with the cloth between them Thor remained unharmed. He snuggled into his brother and sighed in contentment.

"I've missed this, Loki." He smiled and nuzzled his brother's leg to drive the point home. Loki smiled and, damn the health risk, turned his face back to its regular form and placed a stitched, freezing kiss on Thor's upturned cheek.

_I've missed it too._


End file.
